Everything and More by Jacqueline Briskin

Author:Jacqueline Briskin [Briskin, Jacqueline]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: G.P.Putnam’s Sons
Published: 1983-08-16T04:00:00+00:00

38

The following morning she discovered she was spotting. Her period wasn’t due for two weeks.

“I better find a doctor,” Linc worried.

“No!” The rape had filled her with a victim’s shame, and Joshua’s kneeing was too poisonous to speak about, especially to his son. “Linc, I’ll be fine.”

Linc crossed Pacific Coast Highway to the general store, buying a box of twelve Modess, aspirin, and a paperback by Faulkner, Mosquitoes.

Understanding her need for quiet, he sat reading. His presence and the grumbling of the sea soothed her and she was able to talk, with burning cheeks and guarded circumspection, about the few agonizing minutes in the bedroom.

“. . . he was very drunk. I guess that’s why I can’t keep on hating him . . . very much, anyway.”

“That’s how it is with him. You want to despise him, then for some reason you find you can’t. God, I’d forgotten the whole syndrome! When I was fourteen, I figured out about his girls. What took me so long, I can’t tell you. Arrested development, maybe. God knows, he never kept them a secret—when he attached himself to a new one, he all but took out ads in the trades. On Mother’s behalf I loathed him, yet on my own, I harbored admiration. At least my old man had the guts not to be a hypocrite like the others.”

“To my knowledge, he’s never cheated on me.”

“Why would he? You’re his goddess, it’s written all over him. Now, why he fell for his son’s girl, well, there’s something only a good psychiatrist could figure out.”

It was after five when she felt up to navigating the hundred feet to the motel office with its exterior telephone booth. Linc produced a handful of silver, then strolled to the sandy ledge to look down at breakers, the kind of tactful consideration about personal privacy to which Joshua never succumbed.

Percy answered the phone.

After the greetings, Marylin said, “Get Billy for me, will you, Percy?”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Fernauld,” Percy said embarrassedly. “But Mr. Fernauld, he say, well, he say anything regarding Billy must be cleared with him. He’s been drinking heavy all night and day, drinking like he done when Linc died—when Linc was missing. If I put Billy on the phone, he’ll fire us, sure. I feel awful about this, Mrs. Fernauld.”

She closed her eyes. “That’s all right, Percy. Tell Mr. Fernauld I’ll be over in an hour or so.”

“He stepped out a while ago. And, well, you know how it is with him. Tonight he might get some sleep. Best to try in the morning.”

She hung up and rested her aching forehead against the sand-pitted glass of the booth.

Linc returned. “That was quick.”

She explained Joshua’s interdiction.

“What a shitty thing to do,” Linc muttered.

She sighed. “Billy must be positive I’ve run out on him.”

“The poor little kid.”

“You warned me, Linc, I know, but it seemed impossible Joshua would act like this.”

“The aging bull elephant defends his territory every dirty which-way he can.”

“I said we’d go there tomorrow morning. I’ll explain it all to Billy then.

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